Harry The Explainer
Certain furry stories involve a guy who explains technical information or background histories in excruciating detail. Instead of showing the information, they prefer to lecture on for paragraphs about it. Quoted from one of the Chakat stories: Will often used tractor beams in the material handling systems he designed. He started in, "A tractor beam is a variation of a gravity beam, such as is used to propel shuttles, or the gravity field generators used on space ships. The difference is that a tractor beam is modulated with a hyper-wave so that you can control where along the line of action it has affect. Otherwise, the beam would affect everything along that line, which would cause considerable difficulties around crowded space ports. The key thing to understand is that one tractor beam can only do two things, push and pull in a straight line from to toward the beam generator. To generate a force to the side would require at least two beams. Imagine them as rods with swivels on both ends." Jerry nodded, "So what most people call a tractor beam, it is actually several beam generators working in conjunction." Quont continued. "Bla bla bla bla, etc., etc. (incredibly long winded explanatory conversation that is completely unnecessary)" While this one is a rather more interesting example, it still suffers from too much telling and not enough showing: Taurger snorted dismissively. "People have been measuring the stars since they could see. Egypt, Persia, India, China; Incas, Aztecs, Greeks, Arabs... Everything from Indian medicine wheels to Kepler and Brahe. Those two did a lot with not much of a telescope. You’ll know about how long a year is in a little over half that." "Half a telescope?" "Half a year." Copperhead nudged Sungazer and winked at hir. "And how would that work?" Taurger raised his head with a puzzled look. Sungazer seemed confused, too, but Copperhead had a different expression he couldn’t read. "Solstice and equinox; ‘bout a quarter year apart. Can’t take more than half a year to find one of each, even if you start right after one. ‘Course you’ve probably got some kinda fancy equation to figure it early." "Well, maybe," Copperhead conceded, with another wink to Sungazer, "if we had some accurate instruments." *I get it! Sungazer realized. This is who Copperhead said was rattling off comments on everything the past two days. If we keep Taurger talking, we might get some ideas we can use! Taurger shrugged. "You’re only measuring angles for now, so the bigger the better. "Do you know how hard it is to make a big circle accurately? It’s not like anybody’s made more than some short strings so far. And it’s not much use without level ground," Sungazer complained, trying to follow Copperhead’s lead. "Oh, come on. The digging may be slow, but you could have level ground and an artificial horizon before you know the length of the year! They could do that back in Ancient Babylon!" "How?" Taurger was starting to wonder just how much these two actually knew. So he tried to explain some of how the Ancients did things, with a few twists of his own. "A filled water channel will give you a level. Build a short wall in a circle with a channel on top and you’d have a level horizon; better than all those hills. And if you want level ground, just grid out some connected channels, pour in some water, and dig down to it." (bla bla bla) "Take it out of the store for a year and it’s like it never existed." He looked back up and tried to explain. "Okay, a chalk line is a string rubbed with chalk. Stretch it tight across a surface and snap it and it marks a pretty straight line. Now a plumb line – ever heard of a plumb bob?" "Plum – bob? I think I saw one once, in a hardware store," Sungazer said. ''"Metal, with a knob on one end and a point on the other?" ''"Yeah. The knob’s made to fit around a knot on the end of a string, so the point hangs down directly in line. But all you want’s a straight line, so you can use almost anything for the weight." "Which would not only give us a straight line, but a vertical one. Parallel to gravity, and the water’s perpendicular. Not bad. Now all we need is to measure out a circle." (bla bla bla) -Taurger's Tale (www.furry.org.au/chakat/Stories/Taurger.htm) He gives a bunch of long winded speeches, and the other character just says "wow! Tell me more!" instead of thinking he's the boring windbag he is. Neat ideas, but I don't want someone just to sit there and lecture me about it. And this is only one example. Throughout the story, Taurger acts as Harry the Explainer, giving long winded explanations on how to create everything out of primitive implements. And for some reason none of the characters tell him to shut up even though he goes on talking for paragraphs. This is a good example of why "show, not tell" is a good adage. The following scene from ECLIPSE SAGA By Joe Schoder, from the Chakatheaven Yahoo group, goes beyond normal conversation to dumping information on the reader: '' “You know, I just realized, we’ve been together for almost two months and I don’t know that much about you or your family.” I said softly looking up without moving my head. Shi suddenly tensed up and was quiet for a few moments. I saw hir entire countenance change, hir ears flattened against hir head and hir eyes closed, then shi started speaking quietly. “I haven’t talked about my family since... for a long time.” I felt a surge of pain that had nothing to do with my wing, I looked up and saw hir eyes glistening with tears. I hugged hir tighter, “I’m sorry, you don’t have to tell me anything.” Shi sniffed, “No, I want you to know, it’s just...” shi squeezed hir eyes shut and shook hir head. “We were a Fleet Family, both my parents were in Starfleet, so we moved around a lot. My father...” Hir voice trailed off. I looked up and saw hir staring through the wall, hir mind a million lightyears away. Shi continued, “My father was a strong, handsome, loving wolftaur. I got my coloring from him.” Shi said running a hand through hir fur. Shi was smiling sadly, I could tell shi was trying not to cry, “I remember, he used to lift me over his head and blow on my tummies. That would always make me laugh.” “I was so proud when he was promoted to Captain and given his first command, the FSS George Lucas. Even then, he always had time for me; he would let me sit on the Bridge with him during routine missions. I had mastered all of the Bridge station operations before I was fifteen years old.” “Mom was a beautiful Chakat... heh, shi got hir name because when shi was five shi got lost on a family vacation; shi tried to find hir way back and only got farther away. Shi wandered for hours, getting more lost and more scared, then shi had enough. Shi sat down and roared... shi roared, a real roar too. The searchers heard hir from twenty miles away, when shi came of age shi took the name Farcry.” Dimalya stopped for a moment, I think saying the word cry was too much for hir; after a minute shi continued. “Mom was a Lieutenant Commander and the Chief of Security on the George Lucas. Mom and Dad would always take assignments together.” Shi leaned forward and lay hir upper torso on my back. “When I was sixteen I got special dispensation as a minor to go to Starfleet Academy. I breezed through the courses, I already had working knowledge of what they were teaching. I was the first, and as far as I know the only, Cadet who was given command of their training cruise.” “After graduation, I requested assignment on my father’s ship and was assigned as Tactical Officer. Those were the happiest times of my life.” I could feel hir body start to tremble against me; I could feel hir tight sadness through our link. “When I was twenty-five we all had leave time coming, and we decided to spend it together, we were planning it for weeks. We wanted to attend the Freedom Celebration on Chakona...”''Then we have this:'' It was ten minutes before hir tears slowed, after a few more minutes shi was only sniffling. I lay hir back down and stroked hir neck. I thought shi had fallen asleep when shi started talking quietly. “March 8, 2334. The night of the Chakonan Freedom Celebration. My parents got there first; I was going to fly out to meet them the next morning, since I had to take care of some personnel problems in my department.” I thought shi was going to start crying again, but shi continued. “That night there was a terrorist attack; members of the Humans First group took hostages in the Skunktaur archipelago and demanded the release of several of their leaders who had been captured. A strike team managed to go in and save the hostages, but at the same time another member of the terrorist group set off a bomb in Central Amistad... my parents...” Hir throat was so tight shi could only whisper, “My unborn sister...” Shi took a deep, shuddering breath. “When I got there the next morning, all I could do was stand on the rubble... watching crews do cleanup, it was a plasma based device; there were no bodies to recover that close to the center. I stood there and knew that my family was dead... and that I would never even be able to see them again.”''